Living in Key West
7 ways to move here
How does one move to Key West? There are lots of toss-off answers, like “marry rich” or “rob a bank,” but I decided to take this seriously. Here’s how one prepares to move to Key West.
Why would you leave?
Everyone dreams of living in Key West, a place where everyone knows why you’d move there. What most folks rarely stop to think about: Why would anyone up and leave? And they do. Lots of them.
North to Miami? Nope
Did you know you head east when you drive to Miami? Not north. East-northeast. And mostly east. Trust your eyes at sunrise. Well, except for a couple of stretches like that right turn in Big Pine, which is due south.
Living in Key West | How hard can it be?
Heck, you’ve vacationed in Key West for years. You know all about the island mystique — and on an island you don’t even have grass to mow. So, let’s find out if you’ve got what it takes to live here.
It’s hurricane season
The official hurricane season is June 1-November 31, which is pretty much the whole year, because we prep in May and hope to heaven there are no late storms in December. No local ever takes hurricane season lightly, especially if we’ve weathered an earlier one.
Hidden charms & secrets
Lizards. Iguanas. Roaches. Floods. Heat wave alerts. Hurricanes. Power outages. Crashing cell service. No water. No parking. Traffic headaches. Neighbors so close you hear their toliets flush. It’ll make you crazy. And, yet we can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Homeowner tips
Wow. You own (or rent) your personal piece of paradise. So how come you’ve got bugs, mold and mildew? How come the like-new air conditioning needs to be replaced? Home repairs and maintenance in a sub-tropical environment are not for the faint of heart.
Hurricane season demands
preparation all yearlong
Our latest post
Hurricane prep: Don’t forget to go analog
Ran into a friend earlier this week and we chatted over what's become a cliche: How's the repair work going? It's been nine months since Hurricane Ian blasted into the west coast of Florida as a full-on Category 5 monster. That same storm barged into Key West hours...
No one tells you
about the roaches
Our latest post
Key West clutter | Or, how to downsize — again
It has become embarrassingly obvious I can no longer roll my eyes when I stumble into a pile of stuff Ranger Ed says he might need someday. What I call Key West clutter when it's HIS stuff morphs into priceless stuffed pillows and ancient quilts with threadbare...
The things every Key West
homeowner should know
Our latest post
Key West rain | Just dry season or is there a drought?
I'm not alone in grinning when I read a weather forecast that calls for rain. Or when I get up to promisingly heavy cloudy skies. Dadgummit! It could rain today. One needs only eyeballs to confirm it's been darn dry the past three months. It's dusty. Everything is...
